[CQ-Contest] A Peek at Next Weekend's WRTC2018

[David Siddall]

Good luck to all at WRTC next week.

Below is a "peek behind the scenes" that I thought contesters would enjoy.

Please get on the air and work all the competitors.  Submit your log
immediately after the contest ends.  Your WRTC award(s) will be made
automatically based upon your log-- no other application required -- and
downloadable from the WRTC2018 website.  All but one WRTC award (WAWRTC)
require log submission by no later than 1800 UTC Sunday (July 15).  Several
are geographic-based, so your ranking will compare with others in your
vicinity.

And please: spot all the WRTC stations as much as possible, BUT DO NOT
IDENTIFY to others who the operators are if you recognize them. The
competitors are as adamant on this point as anybody else.  Any "bump" in a
log compared to other logs will invite extra scrutiny by the judges, and
computer software is very good at flagging such anomalies.

Live webcasts of the opening ceremony on Thursday and closing ceremony on
Monday are scheduled to begin at 1700 UTC.  During the event a live
scoreboard will track all teams and afterward claimed scores will be
posted.   Links for all will be on the WRTC home page: http://wrtc2018.de/
index.php/en/.

There also will be two special broadcasts of WRTC news and information on
shortwave, as I posted yesterday.  These broadcasts will use 30 GIGAWATTS
(30,000,000 watts) ERP (300 KW > 20dB antenna)!  Sat. July 14 @ 11-1200 UTC
and Sun. July 15 @ 0900 UTC, both on 6.070 MHz and 13.860 MHz (best for
North America).

73, Dave K3ZJ


*WRTC2018 Activities and Information*


*Time Schedule*

You can find the *sequence of events* in http://www.wrtc2018.
de/index.php/en/competition/schedule . Chris, DL1MGB, President of WRTC
2018 e.V. and Michael, DL6MHW, VP of WRTC 2018 e.V. are already at the site
in Wittenberg to overview and participate in the final preparations for the
big event. Most of the other organizers – including myself - will arrive at
the latest on *Tuesday, July 10th*.

*Wednesday* is the official arrival date. The *“Ham Widows Ball”*,
sponsored by the YASME Foundation, certainly will be the highlight of the
day.

The official *opening ceremony* cum dinner will be on *Thursday,* July 12th
.

On *Friday *we’ll *raffle the sites* among the 63 competing teams

On *Saturday, July 14th at 11:45 UTC* (13:45 local time)  the referees will
open the envelopes containing the *special callsigns *assigned to the
competition teams.  And, of course, at *12:00:00 UTC* a massive outburst of
“CQ Test” messages will be heard on the bands….

The contest will *end at 11:59:59 on Sunday*, July 15th and I would not be
surprised if the top competitors would score in excess of 4 K QSOs in spite
of the fact that the competitors may only use a maximum of 100 W of RF
power.

*Log evaluation* will start immediately after the end of the contest and
will last *until 16:00 UTC on Monday*, July 16th followed by the closing
ceremony and the YAESU Award Dinner.



*The calls behind the calls*

WRTC is all about fairness and equal chances. Thus, we are trying hard to
keep the structure of the calls to be used in the competition a secret. We
are trying even harder to prevent any link between the original calls of
the competitors and the call signs used by the competitors during the
contest from becoming known to the thousands of participants in the IARU HF
championship resp. the participants of the WRTC competition.



*Live Score Board*

For those who cannot personally attend, one of the highlights of the event
will be to watch the live scoreboard. A team of high caliber
professionals *headed
and coordinated by Ben, DL6RAI*, has worked hard to come up with something
which we call the SCC (*score collecting computer*). There will be an SCC
for each competing team and it will automatically send the score by means
of mobile radio technology to a central computer. Here the scores will be
configured to provide meaningful information for the thousands of WRTC fans
all over the world. Of course, the calls presented in the live scoreboard
will not list the actual contest calls but rather the original calls of the
teams for reasons of fairness and equal chances. Neither the competitors
nor the referees will have access to this information. Internet and mobile
phones are a strict no-no to them.

The scores will be updated every 60 seconds!

Our thanks go to *Dave Pascoe, KM3T, and Bob Raymond, WA1Z*, for allowing
us to make use of their sophisticated software designed for the 2014 event
in Boston.

*The live scoreboard may be accessed at sb at wrtc2018.de*



*Logistics*

This definitively is no kiddy stuff! We’ll rent about 16 vans and put
another 3 mini-buses at our disposal in order to transport material, food,
and petrol to and from the sites as well as people between  Berlin airport
(TXL)and Wittenberg and its vicinity. Robby, DM6DX,

wrtc2018 at dm6dx.de is in charge of all our vehicles and mobile services.



And there are such smallish issues like 65 portaloos needed to be hired and
brought exactly (by means of exact coordinates down to the second) to the
sites. Not to talk about 1,300 pieces of broom handles plus 30 km of
barrier tape to seal off the competition sites from curious spectators. A
metric ton of gasoline is needed to be brought to the sites to fuel the 65
generators providing the electric power to the competition tents. Not to
talk about the 10 km of coaxial cable needed and donated by our gold
sponsor Messi & Paoloni from Italy. Although very light weight, the total
weight of the coaxial cables alone exceeds 1,000 pounds!



We had subcontracted the services of an outside agency, namely DALICHOW
events, to handle hotel reservations, sightseeing tours, and airport
transfers. Unfortunately, the start of their involvement was everything
else but smooth. *We sincerely apologize for the various initial hickups
and the inconveniences caused.* In the meantime *DALICHOW Events* deliver
and I feel they are coming closer to the mark. At least, I finally received
the confirmation for the various events I had booked for my XYL Richardis
and myself….



Quite a number of fellow hams have volunteered for the *transfer service
from the Berlin airport (TXL) to Wittenberg*. If you are lucky your driver
will be *Ben, DL6FBL*, one of Germany's top contesters. As you know, there
is no speed limit on German highways (Autobahn); yet, Ben has promised.,
not to exceed 200 km per hour in consideration of the feelings of our
American guests….



*Axel, DL6KVA, dl6kva at wrtc2018.de*  is in charge of recruiting and
coordinating the more than 300 volunteers needed to get things rolling.



*Bookings*

Wittenberg is a *small, yet quite a historic town* with kind of limited
facilities and resources. Everything is a bit tight from parking lots to
hotel rooms. When deciding on the location we had to compromise to some
extent between rf-quietness, availability of plots and infrastructural
strength. Overall, I think we came up with a good compromise: Very quiet
locations – they have all been tested by Uli, *DJ2YA, dj2ya at wrtc2018.de* –
and good sightseeing opportunities.



Of course, the *hotels are heavily booked* but *Ralf,
DK1DSA, dk1dsa at wrtc2018.de* , in my opinion, does an outstanding job in
getting things straightened out: I am sure, nobody needs to bring a tent to
survive somewhere in the wilderness!

*Opening and closing ceremonies are heavily booked out as well as dinners
in the HQ-hotel*. However, I have been told that there are *many
small-scale restaurants in Wittenberg*. So, my xyl and I gave up my options
for dinner at the HQ hotel in favor of meeting and dining in a cozy
atmosphere in one of the *restaurants within walking distance* of the
HQ-Hotel.



*Safety*

Wittenberg is a *socially safe* area. The only safety risks I can see have
to do with environmental risks, namely

a) the Wittenberg area at the moment is plagued by a *severe drought*. *As
a consequence barbecuing at the sites as well as any kind of open fire or
smoking inside or outside the tents is strictly prohibited. *Fire
extinguishers are part of the set up for each site.

b) *Heavy thunderstorms*, unfortunately, cannot be ruled out at this time
of the year. On the contrary, they are likely to occur and they might be
heavy. We’ve come up with a scheme to warn and to safeguard competitors at
least to some extent as well as to maintain equal chances to all the
competitors. Details will be provided to the referees and competitors prior
to the start of the competition.

Hartmut, DM5TI,



*Creating pileups*

Chris, DL1MGB and Michael, DL6MHW, have come up with a number of
“award-winning *contests within the contest*”.  The details can be found in
http://wrtc2018.de/index.php/en/activities/wrtc-2018-en . As you can easily
see the choice is yours: Anything from SPRINT (who is the first one to work
all the WRTC-competitors) to “long distance challenge” is available. Just
make your choice!



*Support needed*

Well, financing the event is no longer a headache to us. Spreading the news
has been accomplished as well. The only thing left – apart from keeping
your fingers crossed for the flawless conduct of the event – is to create
huge pileups for our competitors. They just love the pileups! Kindly help
them by motivating as many fellow hams as possible from all over the world
to call our competitors.



*Closing remarks*

I take the opportunity to thank you very much for your contribution to
finance the WRTC 2018 and to make WRTC 2018 known to your compatriots. The
board and my colleagues of the organizing committee are looking forward to
meeting you and our guests next week and if you can’t make it, don’t forget
to have a look at our life scoreboard at sb at wrtc2018.de. I guarantee thrill
and excitement!



vy 73 de Rudy, DJ3WE


 (edited by K3ZJ)